Liz Glynn Utopia or Oblivion: Parts I and II

For Performa 11, Liz Glynn will present a two-part performance. Inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s faltering geodesic dome experiment of 1948, Glynn will attempt to re-create this project successfully. Fuller had gathered a group of his students at the avant-garde Black Mountain College to erect an architecturally scaled geodesic dome structure based on his models. Despite its actual failure, this experiment eventually led one of Fuller’s students, Kenneth Sneleson, to develop the principle of tensegrity, which allowed Fuller to create functional geodesic structures at a large scale.

The first part of Glynn's performance will be a loosely choreographed, silent re-enactment of the original event, performed by ten dancers in forty minutes. Additional performances will be staged in several locations around New York City over a number of days, leading to a second event at One New York Plaza, the southernmost skyscraper in New York City. In a participatory and collaborative effort and an experiment in group dynamics and collective building following the principles of tensegrity, up to twenty-five people will volunteer to assist in the successful building of a geodesic dome. Drawing on traditions of building as performance and utopian design, the project seeks to explore the relationship between human scale and iconic monumental form.